Chinese translation of the app: review and corrections

[Abdullah-Masood-05]

This thread collects corrections to the Simplified Chinese (简体中文) text of the Nilesoft Shell Pro app. zhonglixun offered to review it in moudey#815.

The text is in src/settings/translations/zh-CN/LC_MESSAGES/nilesoft-shell-pro.po. Each entry has the English text (msgid) and the Chinese (msgstr), and the comment above it names the page it appears on.

Two ways to send corrections:

• Post them here as a list (the English text or a screenshot, and what it should say).
• Or edit the file on GitHub (the pencil icon) and open a pull request.

Already changed after the first review: Menu Builder is now 自定义菜单 and Preferences is 偏好设置.

Traditional Chinese (繁體中文) needs a separate reviewer from Taiwan or Hong Kong. If that's you, please say so here.

[zhonglixun]

@Abdullah-Masood-05
First of all, the first thing I want to report to you is the display issue. I have noticed many text display deviations as shown in the picture. Not only are there deviations within the buttons, but there are also some individual deviations that are not limited to this one place.

Secondly, there is the selection of fonts and the display effect.

Currently, the Chinese text looks somewhat uneven, and the bold text appears heavily smeared (see the titles and row labels in the screenshot).

Why this happens:
In Windows, if the font stack doesn't explicitly specify a modern CJK fallback, the system often defaults back to SimSun (an older serif font). Because SimSun lacks native bold weights, the rendering engine applies an artificial "faux bold" (synthetic bolding), which makes the Chinese strokes blur and stick together.

Suggested fix:
You can easily fix this by adding standard Windows modern sans-serif fonts to your global font-family stack. For example:

font-family: "Segoe UI Variable Text", "Segoe UI", "Microsoft YaHei UI", "Microsoft YaHei", sans-serif;

• "Microsoft YaHei UI" is the native Windows Simplified Chinese UI font (introduced since Windows Vista/7 and refined in Win 10/11). It includes well-designed native weights for regular and bold, so it matches the clean, modern look of Segoe UI perfectly without the muddy faux-bold effect.

By the way, you can switch the system language to Chinese and then check the text display effect in various Settings interfaces. This can help you verify whether the modified display effect is reasonable.

[Abdullah-Masood-05]

Thanks, both points are useful.

The misaligned buttons. That was a real bug. The two-option buttons (Desktop / File Explorer, Preview / Generated .nss, the language and channel choices) gave longer labels more room, but the blue highlight assumed every option had the same width. With Chinese text the two drifted apart. Every option now gets the same width, the label is centred, and the File Explorer tab in the preview uses the short 资源管理器. If you saw misaligned text anywhere other than these buttons, a screenshot or the page name would help me find it.

The font. The app already uses Microsoft YaHei UI for Simplified Chinese (and Microsoft JhengHei UI for Traditional), with its real bold weight rather than SimSun. I rendered the same page here and compared it with your screenshot, and the shapes are YaHei in both. What you're seeing is probably the app's renderer: it draws text itself instead of through DirectWrite, so it doesn't get Windows' ClearType hinting, and small bold CJK text looks softer and heavier than in Windows Settings. I'll look at using a lighter weight for small Chinese labels. If there's a place where it bothers you most, tell me and I'll start there.

These fixes will be in the next beta, together with your translation corrections.

[zhonglixun]

1. Home Page

• "Also register for me" ➔ Currently translated as "也为我注册" (a bit too literal/awkward).

• Better: "为当前用户注册" (Register for current user).
• Subtitle: "覆盖所有用户的注册" or "优先于所有用户配置".

• "Reload the shell and the menu" ➔ Currently "重新加载 Windows 外壳和菜单".

• "外壳" is an overly literal translation for "shell". In Chinese Windows, users expect Explorer or Shell:
• Better: "重新加载资源管理器与菜单" (or "重新加载 Shell 与菜单").

---

2. Appearance Page

• "File Explorer" button (Live preview):

• Currently translated as "文件资源管理器", which is too long and causes the adjacent "桌面" (Desktop) tab to get clipped/overlapped.
• Better: Shorten it to "资源管理器" (standard shorthand in Chinese Windows). This fits the button width nicely and resolves the layout overlap.

• "Accent tint" / "No tint" / "Accent outline":

• In Chinese Windows, the official term for Accent Color is "主题色".
• Accent tint ➔ "主题色" (instead of the awkward "强调色着色")
• No tint ➔ "无主题色" (or "无着色")
• Accent outline ➔ "主题色边框"

• "Typography" (Tab label):

• Currently translated as "文字排版" (sounds like book typesetting).
• In UI theming alongside "Colors" and "Effects", the natural term is "字体" (Fonts) or simply "排版".

• "image colours" (in "Want to go further?" card):

• Currently "图像颜色" (image color).
• In context menu theming, image/icon should be "图标颜色" (icon color).

This is only a small part of the main content I have seen so far. I haven't read the small print parts carefully. I plan to check the main part first.

[Abdullah-Masood-05]

Thank you, all of these are in:

• Also register for me: 为当前用户注册, with 优先于所有用户配置 under it. I changed "Enable for my account too" in the setup steps the same way (为当前用户启用).
• Reload the shell and the menu: 重新加载资源管理器与菜单.
• File Explorer in the live preview: 资源管理器. The tab buttons now also give every option the same width, so the overlap is gone either way.
• Accent: 主题色 everywhere, so Accent tint is 主题色, No tint is 无主题色 and Accent outline is 主题色边框.
• Typography: 字体.
• Image colours: 图标颜色.

I also switched 帐户 to 账户 throughout, since that's what current Windows uses. Tell me if you'd rather keep 帐户.

No rush on the rest. When you've gone through the main parts, I'll put everything into the next beta and let you know here.

[Abdullah-Masood-05]

To be clear about the plan: I won't release anything until you've finished the main parts. Once you tell me you're done, I'll put all your corrections and the button fix into 2.0.6-beta.2, release it, and post the link here so you can check the result in the app.

If you'd like to see the button fix sooner, say so and I can release a beta earlier.

[zhonglixun]

The Behavior page already looks quite solid! There are just a few minor phrasing tweaks that would make it sound much more natural and native:

1. "Remove their separators" ➔ Currently translated as "移除其分隔线".

• The word "其" sounds a bit like an awkward machine translation.
• Better: "移除自带分隔线" (Remove built-in separators) or simply "移除分隔线".

2. "Print Screen saves the open menu" ➔ Currently translated as "按 Print Screen 保存当前打开的菜单".

• "保存" (save) might make users think it saves a file to disk rather than capturing a screenshot.
• Better: "按 Print Screen 截取打开的菜单" (takes a screenshot of the open menu).

3. Submenu delay subtitle ("Replaces your Windows setting..."):

• Currently: "Shell 菜单打开时替代你的 Windows 设置".
• Better: "在 Shell 菜单打开时覆盖 Windows 默认设置 (400 ms)" ("覆盖" is the standard term for overriding system defaults in Chinese).

4. "Windows 菜单项的图标" / "Shell 菜单项的图标":

• Removing the particle "的" makes it cleaner and more UI-standard: "Windows 菜单项图标" / "Shell 菜单项图标".

Finally, if I have completed the inspection of the main part, I will report to you. There is no need to update the version immediately. Keep the version management clean.

[Abdullah-Masood-05]

Thanks, all four Behavior changes are in: 移除自带分隔线, 按 Print Screen 截取打开的菜单, 在 Shell 菜单打开时覆盖 Windows 默认设置 (400 ms), and Windows 菜单项图标 / Shell 菜单项图标.

Agreed on keeping versions clean: nothing gets released until you say you're done with the main parts.

Two things I'm working on in the meantime, based on your first comment:

• Misaligned text outside the buttons. I'm going through every page in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, light and dark, including the first-run steps and dialogs, and fixing anything that's clipped or out of line.
• The font. I'm testing whether the app can draw Chinese text more crisply, for example by using a lighter weight than bold for small labels or a different text renderer. I'll post before and after screenshots here so you can judge which looks right.

I'm also doing a pass over the rest of the Simplified Chinese text in the style of your corrections, so you should find fewer of these as you go.

[zhonglixun]

In “Rules & Filters ”and “Context Menus”, I didn't see any major issues with the main part, so I skipped over the detailed descriptions. Only part of the description has not been translated.The way this part is described seems a bit upside down.I think it would be better to directly combine the small and large characters into a complete functional description. Moreover, it seems that there is a lack of description for the storage of secondary menus. Although I could guess it by looking at the right-click menu.

Terms like "file manage", "Terminal", and "More options" are displayed in English quotes here, even though they are already translated as "文件管理", "终端", and "更多选项" in the table above. It would be much cleaner if these rule descriptions could reference the localized names.
Could you clarify what lines 9 & 10 under "Rules for Windows items" are intended to do?

Move to "Pin/Unpin"（固定/未固定）, at the bottom "unpin*"
Move to "Pin/Unpin"（固定/未固定）, at the top "pin*"
I tried toggling both options on and off, but didn't notice any visible changes in the context menu.

If the idea is to group various built-in "pin" and "unpin" items into a dedicated "Pin/Unpin" submenu, that doesn't seem to take effect on my end—the different pin-related items still remain standalone and unorganized rather than being tucked into a submenu.I'm not sure if this is related to the matching miss caused by the system language

Could you let me know how these rules are supposed to work, or under what conditions they trigger?

[Abdullah-Masood-05]

Thanks for going through all of it. I'll start on 2.0.6-beta.2 now.

Lines 9 and 10 (Pin/Unpin). They move Windows' pin and unpin items (固定到快速访问, 固定到"开始" and so on) into the 固定/取消固定 submenu, so they don't take up space in the main menu. You found a real problem: the rules in your screenshot are from an old version of modify.nss. They match items by their English names ("pin*") and look for a menu called "Pin/Unpin", so on Chinese Windows they never match anything. Since 2.0.5 the shipped file matches these items by their Windows ID and finds the submenu by its translated title, so it works in any language.

You still have the old file because updates replace the files in the install folder but not the copies in your own configuration folder (%APPDATA%\Nilesoft\Shell\imports). That's a bug on my side, and it affects everyone with a per-user configuration. In beta.2 the app will update those copies itself when you install a new version, as long as you haven't edited them. Edited files are kept, and the app shows what changed so you can decide.

If you want to try it right away: copy modify.nss from C:\Program Files\Nilesoft Shell\imports\ into %APPDATA%\Nilesoft\Shell\imports\, replacing the old one. The pin items should then move into 固定/取消固定.

The rule descriptions. Agreed on all points. Each rule will be one complete sentence, for example 将"复制为路径"移到"文件管理"菜单. Menu names will use their translated titles (文件管理, 终端, 更多选项), and Windows items will use the names your Windows shows instead of English IDs. The leftover English fragments, like "Drive", will be translated too.

I'll post here when beta.2 is out.

[zhonglixun]

In addition, I think you can start working on the new version; I’ve gone over the other sections. I believe they’re all standard, straightforward settings. Users should be able to understand the functions intuitively, and while the translations may not be particularly helpful, they’re unlikely to cause confusion.

[Abdullah-Masood-05]

@zhonglixun 2.0.6-beta.2 is out: https://github.com/Abdullah-Masood-05/Shell/releases/tag/v2.0.6-beta.2

What's in it from your review:

• All your Simplified Chinese corrections, plus a pass over the rest of the text in the same style.
• The two- and three-option buttons give every option the same width, so the highlight lines up with the label.
• On the Context Menus page each rule is now one sentence, with the menu names and Windows item names in Chinese, for example 将"复制为路径"移到"文件管理"菜单.
• Updates now bring your own copies of the menu files up to date. When the app first starts after this update, it should replace your old modify.nss (a snapshot is saved in Backups first), and the Pin/Unpin rules will then move the pin items into 固定/取消固定. If you edited a file yourself, it's kept, and Home shows it with Compare and Use the new version.

Thanks again for all the time you put into this. If anything still looks wrong, tell me here.

[Abdullah-Masood-05]

One question that would help me: in your screenshot right after the update, the app was in English. Before you updated, was Preferences > Language set to 简体中文 or to 自动 (Auto)? And is your Windows display language Chinese?

I couldn't find anything in the app that loses the language setting, so I suspect the restart after the update. In the next beta the app passes the language it's showing to the update helper, which starts it again in that same language. That takes effect from the update after this one, so if it happens once more on the next update, please tell me.

[zhonglixun]

Before the update, it was set to Chinese, and my Windows display language was also Chinese. I just temporarily switched the software interface to English while taking the screenshot. By the way, regarding the issue of language display, actually when I was debugging and switching Windows languages, I found a special situation. If the two options in your picture are different, for example, one is Chinese and the other is English, then at this time, the right-click menu will show a coexistence of Chinese and English.This indicates that there are actually subtle differences in the logic of language selection within the menu.

[Abdullah-Masood-05]

2.0.6-beta.3 is out with the fixes for what you reported: https://github.com/Abdullah-Masood-05/Shell/releases/tag/v2.0.6-beta.3

• 固定到"开始", 从"开始"屏幕取消固定 and 固定到快速访问 are now recognised on Windows 11 in any language, so they should all move into 固定/取消固定 together with 固定到任务栏.
• Long pages scroll all the way to the end, including the last rows on 外观 and 右键菜单.

Updating from inside the app works, or install setup-x64.msi over the current version. I couldn't test the pin items on a Chinese Windows myself, so a screenshot of a folder's and an .exe's menu after updating would tell me whether it's fixed.

[zhonglixun]

No problems were found. They all worked correctly.

[Abdullah-Masood-05]

Thank you, that was a great find, and good to hear the pin items and the scrolling work now.

You were right about the mixed languages. Shell picked its language file from the regional format, while Windows' own menu items follow the Windows display language. When the two are different, one menu ends up with both. Shell now follows the display language too, so the whole menu matches what Windows shows. The fix will be in the next beta.

[zhonglixun]

@Abdullah-Masood-05
Regarding the new Snippets tab:

It is currently translated literally as "代码片段" (Code Snippets). While technically accurate under the hood (since they are NSS code blocks), to average users "Code Snippets" sounds like a developer-oriented programming tool, which might discourage non-programmers from using it.

In reality, these are ready-made helper features (like Copy file hash, Copy folder tree, etc.) that instantly extend context menu capabilities.

Suggested refinement:

• Change the title & menu item from "代码片段" to "扩展功能" (Extended Features) or "功能扩展" (Feature Extensions).
• Change Search snippets search placeholder to "搜索扩展功能" (Search extensions).

This phrasing makes it immediately intuitive that these are turnkey enhancements for the right-click menu!

In addition, in this latest update, I saw that you have added many new functional modules, and they are all very powerful, especially "Menu map"; The function is extremely useful. After using it so far, I have some suggestions for functional adjustments or enhancements. I plan to take some time to organize these ideas and start another discussion, keeping it focused on issues related to translation.

[Abdullah-Masood-05]

I’ll look into this issue over the weekend, as my weekdays are quite busy. I’ll work on it as soon as I have some free time. Thank you for your patience and understanding.